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How to Focus Your Job Search in the First Quarter

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- If you're looking for a job, it's always good to have some insight on the kind of candidate companies and recruiters are really after. Although experience is essential in any field, strong job-seekers should also be prepared with the kind of leadership skills and performance techniques hiring managers want. With a changing job market and fluctuating economy expected in 2014, some skills will be essential for success. We checked in with experts to find out the top five skills that will boost your resume this year.

1. Agility and adaptability

"We're seeing a strong need for adaptability, flexibility, agility, whatever you want to call it," says Angela Hills, executive vice president of Pinstripe, a talent acquisition and management firm. "Organizations need people who can get in and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of their business."

Even if you think your career has been fairly static, reflect on times you have performed during uncertain times, Hills says.

"Being able to jump in and sort things out during periods of ambiguity and perform effectively during those uncertain times is a skill in and of itself," Hills says. "Candidates should come prepared with instances when they have demonstrated this."

"There is the perception that there is a shortage of people in the right point in their career that they are willing to take international assignments," Hills says. "There is a heated conversation about how we can think differently about international experience -- how we can make it desirable and make it work."

As more organizations realize they can't just look at business from a single region, individuals who have had global experience and taken international assignments have a marketable and transferable skill, Hills says -- they've just got to connect to the value.

"Take a look at the companies you're targeting and connect the dots where your specific regional experience would match to the companies you're interested in," she says. "Be mindful that you can be competing for the same job with people in multiple regions of the world."

Even if you find yourself coming up short in the international experience department, there's no reason you can't brush up on global trends, says Mark Anthony Dyson, founder and publisher of TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com.

"What your competition may not be doing is speaking to employers with industry trends in mind," Dyson says. "If the company conducts international business, you should know the trends."